My adult son lied to me. Now what?

[tumblelord]

Following on from my previous thread. I recently found out that my 38 year old son has been lying to me for years. He has a DS5 and DD2 and has been going through court to see them. He said that he hadn't been allowed to have contact with the children because his ex had made up lies about him. It seems that they weren't lies.

He was aggressive and threatening to his ex when she was pregnant. He isn't allowed to see DGD because she's seen as vulnerable due to her age. He is now allowed contact with DGS but DGS refuses to go with him. He smashed up a contact centre, made malicious reports to social services and spend hours parked near his ex's house to intimidate her.

He has been living with me since his relationship ended but I can't face being in the house with him at the moment. I only found out on Saturday when I was cleaning his room and found a court bundle. I can't kick him out because he only earns a small amount and doesn't have the income or paperwork to rent somewhere. I don't know what to do. I have no relationship with my grandchildren because I love and trusted my son. I feel such a fool.

Even in your original post here, it is evasive about the situation. You made a new thread instead of continuing with your old one. Why? So that the issue will be about kids lying to parents - the issue here is your continued enabling of your son, but at his age this has been going on for almost 40 years. I am doubtful that you really want to change or are ready to hear the truth & take action.

You don’t deserve access to yo ur grandkids in my opinion. Am just going to say it. You are not honest, you continue (and won’t stop I believe) supporting a dangerous abuser (according to court records & your ex DIL) am not a parent but I would not trust you with my child - no way, not knowing if anything ever happened to them on your watch, or their dad hurt them that you have a history of turning a blind eye, believing a proven liar & supporting him. You would probably lie in court to protect your son...this is the vibe I get from you.

This isn’t about “blaming a woman” it is about a person who even when faced with court records describes clear abusive behaviour as merely “unpleasant”.

I don’t think Mumsnet would be helping you if they put both these posts together & connected the dots.

Ahh op
We all want to belive our children,whatever age they are ,we all want to think the best of them.
But that can make us blind to their faults .
Start by apologies to your sons ex wife and ask him to leave

Children need boundaries. Mothers like to feel safe knowing their boundaries are respected when they are with their grandparents. You lack boundaries & blindly believe your son & will likely believe the bare minimum he can get away with telling you to mollify you. You seem happier Iiving in ignorance when it didn’t affect access to the grandkids. But you want to see the little ones but still house the abuser & have happy families & pretend life is all ok. You are a sweep it under the rug type who is enmeshed with her son who by all accounts is a charming (at least to you) but extremely unpleasant individual. You raised him & he is your baby still.

So you have your hands full & as he is not going to get much access to his kids after all this, you may want to either kick him out & get real or make his room nice & cosy so he never leaves & becomes an incel.

Just read the other thread.

You are a fool. It’s absolutely clear to me that you have no intention of making a stand against your son. Hard as that would be. Men like that don’t change. Shame on you.

@PepePig

In all honesty I completely agree with everything you've just said re reading everything the OP has written and looking at it in a different light I think the OP should let him sort himself out and stop treating him like a little boy. Clearly there's so much more going on and he seems a dangerously manipulative man.

Sorry to anyone who took offence I'd be distraught if that was my son.

I think the fact that you didn't have a clue what your son was like, OP is very frightening. It shows just how controlled his behaviour is and how he knows exactly what he is doing.

He has harassed the mother of his children in a sustained abusive way over years. He has terrorised that woman and his own children. He has spent thousands on a court case in order to drag it all out as he has no intention of spending time with his children, it's all about getting at her and not letting her live in peace. He's a very, very dangerous man.

Women's groups have been campaigning for years to stop men like this continuing their abuse through the courts and things are only just now beginning to change. It's no longer allowed that abusive men are allowed to question their victims in court as they were using court time to further intimidate and abuse them - your son is one of these men.

Have a chat with Women's Aid about how to safely move forward regarding this. Throwing him out on the street which may cause him to kick off, is not the best solution to this. Is he paying any maintenance? Calmly broach this with him and find out as he should be paying towards his children while he is living under your roof.

He needs to drop the court case as he obviously has no intention of seeing his children. He smashed up the contact centre and isn't bothering with the one child he can see; he's doing this to punish his ex.

And smashing up the contact centre is the unequivocal reality check you must keep to the forefront your mind despite what twisted untruths he might try and feed you.

That smashing up will have been witnessed and documented by professionals. It happened. It’s real.

@Javagrey posters are being very hard I think mostly because on the OP's previous thread it was screamingly obvious he was (likely to be) a violent, abusive horror of a man and the Op was basically sticking her fingers in her ears and going "Lalala, can't hear you, not my golden boy". It was really frustrating and posters are still frustrated by her lack of appropriate response.

If I found out in the future my DS had deliberately harmed my DIL and DGC, terrorised them, been violent and harassed them through the courts, denied them financial support etc I think I would be physically sick and not be able to even look at him as I immediately packed his stuff and threw him out. Yes I'm his Mum and will always love him (in a way) but I could see such behaviour would provoke an extreme, visceral, physical reaction in me as it's so far from how I live my life and my values. It sounds like even discovering the truth isn't enough to make the rose tinted glasses come off and that's why they are being so blunt in their responses.

You need to sort out your relationship with your son before even thinking about contacting your grandchildren.

Has he always lied to get away with things? Does he treat you and your home with respect? Are you afraid of his temper?

If you can afford counseling for you I suspect it would be very helpful.

soy Op's dh has just as much responsibility as op of course, however she is talking about what she needs to do. We can only respond to her request for advice.

For what it is worth op, your husband now needs to get involved. You need to tell him the truth. It is not fair on you or anyone that your dh simply sits on the fence in blissful ignorance (or is put there with your secrets) as your son continues to behave in such an abysmal way.

Has your husband ever parented him?
Has it all been on you over the years?
Was your dh worn down trying to address his son's behaviour only to be met by your resistance? Does your dh have any say in your family house?
Or have you pushed him by hiding who your son really is with secrets?

I suspect your husband knows exactly what kind of person your son is, and to have a quiet life does nothing because he will come up against you and your desire to protect your son at all costs.

The bottom line is that between you it has been decided you will continue to support and look after this man that abuses his pregnant wife and his own babies, to smash up contact centres and create fear all around him, and yet you are still cooking for him and cleaning his room....wow. Just wow.

If this was a woman posting about this discovery about her partner, yes, everyone would be saying LTB, but they wouldn't be blaming her for who he turned out to be. The blame would all be on him.

I'm appalled that most people's first reaction to the OP is to blame her.

Why are you cleaning a grown mans room? He should move out of your home. He will grow up rather quickly when he to stand on his own two feet. His problem not your own. You have enabled him and it needs to stop. It's time to get to know your Grandchildren. They are innocent in this. Do what it takes to be in their lives.

Of course you should tell him to leave. It's fucking appalling behaviour and you enabled it by having your head in the sand and having him in your home.
He's a horrible human and it's a fucking joke that he got contact. Tell him to stop harassing the ex with legal action and use that money towards a new place.
He's cost you a relationship with your grandchildren.

I've spoken to DH this morning. He was upset but not surprised. It's the latest in a long line of things that disappoint him about DS. We are going to give DS options on how to move forward. Get a job ASAP and move out or stay here and retrain but sort a part time job out and anger management. We are thinking of giving him 3 months to get paperwork sorted if he goes with the first option.

I understand why posters are being so harsh but I hope people can see why I was so blind. I am devastated by this. Its still so hard to believe.

He is almost 40 op. You need to kick him out and grovel to your grandkids mum.

It is great that you are taking action OP. Stay strong and don't back track.

It sounds like your DH has a better read on what your son is capable of.

I would bet that the story about your DH being blocked from attending the court proceedings by nasty ex dil was a lie and in fact your DS blocked him

That's awful. Your heart must have dropped to your feet when you found out

I hope you don't get any backlash. And you eventually see your dgcs.

Anger management is for people who literally can’t keep a lid on their anger, not sneaky manipulators who can present okay when it suits. You are clutching at straws here.

Besides I think if were going to be effective, then it would have been offered by the courts already. Your son has been found to be abusive by the court system. Anger management classes won’t take that away I’m afraid.

tumblelord your heart must be breaking. Take the useful posts out of here (and that doesn't mean the ones that say comforting things, but the ones that tell you the truth without grinding your face into the dirt) and treat the others with reserve.

If you would like to contact your ex DIL then leave it until either your son is out of the house or he has significantly changed - really changed, and you are going to find it very hard to know because your mother-heart will tell you he's changed but he has hoodwinked you for years; you're in the habit of believing him, and that's a hard habit to break especially when you -want- to believe him.

If you do contact her, you'll need to answer her last question about enabling, and you'll need to offer an unconditional apology and you'll also have to be permanently willing to keep your grandchildren apart from your son. You need to show her that you are able to stand back from him and understand that becuase of his past behaviour, she wants nothing to do with him

So if anger management is pointless, what do you suggest? I don't see how I can help otherwise

It's the latest in a long line of things that disappoint him about DS.

How did he express his disappointment OP?

So if anger management is pointless, what do you suggest?

An Abuser Programme.

Call around for an abuser program or at least find a therapist to start with. Make sure they know the situation so he can't lie to them. They may suggest anger management too.

He needs to drop the court case against your DIL and pay CM to her if he is not already. And leave them completely alone. They've been through enough.

I don't know if you and your DH paid part of all of his legal fees but eventually, I would give her money that you can to help make up for the financial hardship she's been through. Nothing will fix it but it will be a good gesture so the kids can have what they need.

Also some counseling for yourself might be helpful too.
Good luck!

You and your dh need to be on the same page about this really, but honestly I can't see any other option but to tell your ds to find somewhere else to live.

Something that would worry me is that he isn't declaring all his income to HMRC. Is that because he is trying to avoid paying maintenance for his children? Your grandchildren and their mother may be really struggling financially due to his tax fraud.

If I were you I'd contact your dil with a simple message that says you have now found out the truth about what really happened and that you are so sorry. The onus is then on her as to whether she wants to re-establish contact with you.